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When one hears or reads about the Communist Party of China (CPC), names of prominent members that helped shaped its fundamental principles follow right after. The likes of Mao Zedong, who spearheaded the party to dominance in the Chinese Democratic Revolution that had forever rewritten the 5000-year-old nation’s history, and simultaneously ushered in a new civilization; Deng Xiaoping, who is most often attributed to opening the Chinese economy to the world, and since then China has never ceased to baffle foreign countries of its socio-economic and technological advancement.
But the CPC had not started with Chairman Mao or Deng Xiaoping as its chief architects and leaders. Young Chinese intellectuals and scholars who dreamt of their country liberated from the clutches of imperialism sought out a whole new ideology which they incessantly had been pondering.
Marxism first came to the shores of China during the reign of the Qing dynasty. Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a physician, philosopher, and revolutionary, led the 1911 revolution and overthrew the Qing dynasty, founded the Republic of China and served as the first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China in 1912 and as the inaugural premiere of the Kuomintang. He is largely known in the People’s Republic of China as the ‘Forerunner of the Revolution’ and one of the founders of the communist movement. His philosophy harmoniously blends nationalism, livelihood and democracy into his Three Principles of the People ideology which pursued to socially modernize the nascent republic.
As early as 1905, the Chinese revolutionary author, Zhu Zhixin, a close confident of Sun Yat-sen, translated excerpts of The Communist Manifesto into Chinese. But it was not until 1919 that Communism began to flourish into the minds of Chinese academics who sought by all means economic and social change. Hence the creation of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, two intellectuals and political activists who were the first to form communist study groups in China, and had equally organized and directed the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement. Li Dazhao theorized that China was a proletarian nation that could surpass a capitalist stage, in time, his theory would prove him right.
After countless political turmoil and armed revolts that ‘almost’ saw China falling into absolute disintegration, the party fortified itself and continued its expansion throughout the mainland. The CPC’s popularity grew as did their military operations and had succeeded in bringing bold and uncompromising men and women into their fold. But none out performed his peers than a charismatic and valiant young man, who will become the face of modern China for generations to come. His name was Mao Zedong, or ‘Chairman’ Mao as he was called, was, at that time, perceptibly the most sagacious and daring member of the CPC. And he will proceed in his imposing nature to instill fear in the hearts of his detractors, and love in the hearts of the Chinese people.
Mao Zedong was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China until his death. A brilliant statesman, a political writer and theorist who had founded the People’s Republic of China and opened the corridors of industrialization for his country and development for his people, and for all foreigners to visit and rediscover the greatness of the ‘new’ China. Born in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao was a disciplinarian from the beginning and resented those who oppressed the poor and vulnerable.
This inherent disposition of morality had led him to study communism and create his own theoretical conception that will help to form the basis of Chinese Communism, a ruling political system that prioritizes state control yet open to foreign investment, had swiftly usher China into superpower prominence. After constant feuds with the nationalist party, the Kuomintang, led by the rebellious Chang Kai Shek, the CPC, led by Mao Zedong, took over mainland china and forced the Kuomintang, along with its leader, to retreat to the island of Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. From the establishment of a new nation from the old one, Mao focused on mass mobilization of the peasantry society, state-sponsored industrialization, and the Great Leap Forward, an economic campaign that succeeded in making China an industrial power.
Following Chairman Mao’s passing, his successor, Deng Xiaoping, continued in his legacy and ushered China into a ‘socialist market economy’, an integration of global trade and the private enterprise into a state-controlled system that has maintained China’s economic dominance till this day.
The CPC has not only reigned supreme on virtually all political and non-political activities in China but the party has always fostered the minds of its fledglings, those who believe in its ideology and principle. The President Xi Jinping was one who stemmed from the intellectual field of the CPC. Adding to the party’s value and continuing in the legacy of his predecessors, President Xi has succeeded in advancing economic and technological growth, shifting away his country’s dependence on foreign technology and innovation; he has advocated and pushed the use of AI and biotechnology, opening up financial and healthcare services to foreign-owned enterprises, while solidifying the CPC’s control over all aspects of the economy. His ideology is elaborated in his doctrine ‘Xi Jinping thought on Economy’ which serves the idea that economic purposes be subjected to wider state security and national superiority. President Xi Jinping’s economic reforms have accelerated China’s global trade and equally introduced a zero-tariff policy for imported goods from underdeveloped countries.
This year marks 105 years of the founding of the Communist Party of China and its relentless effort in unifying China and strengthening its economic influence on the global stage, it also turns a new chapter that sees the party, yet again, working towards peaceful coexistence between nation states, for ‘a shared future.’
